


XOXO

by babybel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Pre Episode: s12e1 Spyfall, Spoilers for Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Texting, a few throwaway references to classic who, also it might be completely obsolete once part 2 airs so :), graham being a dad, i was going to say au but who knows this could be canon, so im jumping on the chance to write it ksjdh, what i got out of that episode was that 13 could've been long distance crushing on o
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22086736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel
Summary: The Doctor doesn't know when it changed from just work texts into this, but she finds herself texting O all day and all night. Graham calls her out on it, which prompts an unpleasant realization- could she have a crush?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 316





	XOXO

**Author's Note:**

> this is really becoming a pattern.. i watch/rewatch an ep of dr who and write a fic immediately after sjkdhf  
> just saying the way she reacted to o being the master definitely meant (to me) that she had been sorta close with who she thought o was.. anyway here's wonderwall

“What are you smiling at?” Graham nodded at her phone. 

The Doctor slapped it facedown on the table, heart picking up. “Nothing. You know, just… funny… internet jokes. They’ve got those, did you know that? Internet jokes.” 

“Memes?” Graham offered. “I think they’re called-”

“Right, yeah.” 

“Yeah,” he echoed, and he took the seat opposite her, throwing a glance around the TARDIS library, where she was sat at a small coffee table tucked between aisles of shelves. “This place is huge, Doc. Really huge.” 

She shrugged, itching to pick her phone back up. She didn’t know why she’d been so immediately nervous about the concept of Graham knowing what she was actually doing. Well, the teasing that would ensue was definitely part of it. It wasn’t like O was a crush or anything. Far from it, they were business associates. Agents-in-cahoots, although she’d never say that either just because it made her cringe just thinking it. There had to be a less embarrassing way to sum her and O up. It started out as strictly you-send-me-information-about-possible-alien-threats-and-I-try-to-help-solve-the-problems, but then it sort of… morphed. Grew. Now it was more of an I’ve-stayed-up-all-night-talking-to-you, or a talking-to-you-is-the-highlight-of-my-day. Not that she’d ever say that, especially not to Graham. She’d never ever hear the end of it. 

“Thing is,” he continued, voice taking on that tone it sometimes did when he spoke to Ryan, that ‘I’m trying very hard to be a parent’ tone, “you’re not smiling the smile Ryan smiles when one of his mates sends him a meme. You’re smiling the smile Ryan smiles when he’s texting a girl he fancies. Not making any assumptions, just… putting it out that if you need to talk, you can… talk to me. I won’t tell the kids.” 

The Doctor was looking down, and now she was blushing. Graham could have at least found a less embarrassing way to say it, and spared her listening to that. “I’m not texting a girl I fancy,” she said, and it came across too defensively, but only because he’d thrown her off. Not because the lady doth protest too much or anything like that. 

“Alright.” Graham held his hands up, giving her a warm smile. 

“I’m older than you are,” she snapped jokingly, “and don’t you forget it.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Graham replied, getting up. 

“Did you just come in here to bully me?” She almost laughed, but kept up an incredulous act. It was so easy to joke around with Graham; it came naturally to the both of them. She hoped it was enough now to detract from the importance of her phone so he just forgot it, or shoved the conversation under a rug somewhere to gather dust. 

“I was looking for a book, but then I spotted you, and-”

“What sort of book? My shelving system’s a bit of a nightmare, thirteen of me all with different takes on the Dewey,” she said quickly. “I’ll give you a pointer in the right direction.” 

Graham shrugged. “Yaz sort of has me hooked on mysteries right now, so…” 

“Right, that’ll be five rows down on the left side coming from the right.” The Doctor gestured as well, and gave him a smile. 

“Gotcha.” Graham nodded, and gave her a look before heading in the instructed direction. After a few steps, he stopped and turned back. “Offer stands, you know.” 

The Doctor blinked. “Offer?”

“If that is a girl- or- or a bloke, I don’t know- and you want to talk about it-” He gave another shrug, and then kept going towards the mystery section, disappearing around a corner.

The Doctor blew out a breath. She didn’t even know why she was so averse to talking about it. She could have easily said, ‘yeah, I’m just texting a mate and he’s being funny’, or ‘just talking to a friend’. The fact that she didn’t, and she tried to hide it, worried her. That meant it meant something. 

After a minute, she picked the phone back up and read through the couple of texts O had sent since she set it down. Just reading them made her want to hold the phone to her chest, however cliche that would be. She hadn’t gotten this giddy over simple communication since- well, it was sobering, but since she’d done banter and back-and-forth with Rose. 

She was hesitant to say it was a crush, even though that was the nature of the terrifying realization she was hurtling towards. Graham’s fault. Sticking his nose in her business like that. No, she was too old for crushes anyway. Crushes were when she was a young man and was kept up at night thinking about how Jamie made her smile; crushes were when she was even younger and flirted with Cameca in the Garden of Peace. She was far too old for that now; she’d lost too much for that. 

So not a crush. But there was still a warm, gentle familiarity to the texts O sent her that she couldn’t shake off. Talking to him was still increasingly becoming the best part of her days. If it really wasn’t a crush - which it wasn’t, she’d keep insisting - it was still something. She might sign goodbye texts with ‘kisses’ to all her friends, but O was the only person she sent those to with the hope it would prompt a ‘kisses’ in return which she could then overthink. 

A lot of evidence was stacking up against her, and thinking about it all at once in the context of what Graham had said was a little much. She looked down, and read O’s last few texts again. He was responding to a message in which she’d said she felt like she’d known him for centuries, in what was blatantly a cliche and even more so a grab for whatever endearing thing he’d send in response. It was also the truth, but that was besides the point. 

_ centuries!! _ he’d typed.  _ i always forget you’re actually a real alien _

_ well i don’t forget i mean i know you’re an alien _

_ you know what i’m saying _

_ i feel like i’ve known you for centuries too _

_ ^ i say, at 35 lmao _

She flipped the phone over and hid the texts so she had an excuse to stop blushing. She was definitely letting what Graham had assumed get to her, letting it corrupt the lens through which she was reading the messages, the lens through which she was interacting with the situation. The thing was, she couldn’t really shake it. Him telling her what he thought was happening clicked it all into place. 

She tried not to get too frightened at the realization, or too overjoyed. 

It really did all make sense, though. Getting texts from O made her miss him so intensely, and she couldn’t even put a finger on how, because they’d never really known each other before, or face to face. That didn’t happen with just anyone; it meant something. 

Finally, heart nearly beating out of her chest, she wrote back,  _ Centuries hyperbolically works for you.  _

In an instant, he was typing out a response.  _ of course! revised message- i feel like i’ve known you for centuries(hyperbolically) too  _

And honestly, really, she couldn’t stop smiling.  _ I’ve got to go quell some maybe rumors. Talk later. Kisses. _

_ maybe rumors? _ O sent the message complete with the emoji of the pair of eyes. 

_ I am absolutely not telling you. Cheers.  _ She sighed, getting up out of her chair and stretching. She’d process what this meant later; she wasn’t sure she could deal with her own feelings at the moment.

_ out of the two of us you’d think you were the spy with the way you keep secrets _ , he wrote. 

She replied,  _ And???? _

_ good luck,  _ was what he sent back. Then, a second later,  _ kisses _

She shoved the phone into her pocket, gave herself a second to pull herself together and stop grinning like an idiot - again, she’d process later - and then hurried from the library, needing to get to Ryan and Yaz before Graham did. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @lesbiandonnanoble (n talk to me about the new ep!!)


End file.
